1st Step In City Colleges Revamp

September 13, 1991|By Robert Davis and Carol Jouzaitis.

Chicago`s often-criticized City Colleges are in store for a sweeping change of mission putting a new focus on work force training under the leadership of Ronald Gidwitz, Mayor Richard Daley`s choice Thursday to be the new chairman of the colleges` Board of Trustees.

Gidwitz, a Republican Party stalwart and head of Helene Curtis Industries, was named to the board along with attorney Edward Czadowski, a former staff aide to U.S. Rep. Dan Rostenkowski (D-Ill.), and Rev. Ferdinand Hargrett, pastor of the Shiloh Missionary Baptist Church on the city`s West Side.

Gidwitz`s selection was viewed as a signal that Daley wants the business community to become more deeply involved in educational reform to stem the city`s hemorrhage of manufacturing jobs.

Cleaning up the City Colleges` problems won`t be easy. Recent critiques of the system say it is bureaucratic and out of sync with its students, of whom only a tiny percentage obtain diplomas or completion certificates. Critics also say it invests most of its resources in expensive, two-year degree programs while shortchanging the city`s more pressing needs for basic skills and vocational training.

Daley said he wants Gidwitz, who also is chairman of the city`s Economic Development Commission, to be chairman of the City Colleges` board. If approved by the board, he will replace Reynaldo Glover, who resigned this week after a series of policy clashes with Chancellor Nelvia Brady.

In accepting the appointment, Gidwitz said his main goal will be to put increased emphasis on vocational training and basic remedial programs needed to help students who arrive at the colleges with grade-school level skills.

At the same time, he said, the colleges will maintain a traditional junior college education geared to helping students transfer to four-year academic institutions.

Gidwitz said about half of the students now enrolled in the city college system need remedial programs, many in adult education programs. But only about 15 percent of the system`s resources are directed at them.

And, he said, the system should greatly expand its vocational education programs to prepare students for blue-collar jobs that require more technical training in such areas as computer literacy.

``Vocational training has been a small part of the overall system,``

Gidwitz said.

Emphasizing vocational education will require a broad overhaul of college offerings. It also will mean devoting more full-time teachers and facilities to work force skills training programs.

That is likely to be met with resistance inside the colleges, particularly from the college`s full-time faculty, which is 98 percent tenured and ranks among the city`s most strongly organized and highly paid. Many of those teaching college courses in literature or science, for example, could find themselves being asked to teach machine shop or computer skills, forcing them to be retrained.

Brady has tried to push the system more in the direction of work force training by developing partnerships with employers. But thus far, hampered by political infighting and the colleges` decentralized structure, she has been unable to win support for a new strategic plan.

It remains to be seen whether Gidwitz and other board members will decide to retain Brady, whose contract expires in December.

Gidwitz has been involved in a Brady-spearheaded training effort known as Productive Chicago. But so far the program, which includes an airline mechanics school at Daley College, has been viewed as a costly failure, and Gidwitz has been critical of its results.

Daley asked Gidwitz to take the job because the businessman often has expressed his views on the colleges` shortcomings.

``Gidwitz has been a constant source of recommendations to the mayor on what should be done,`` said one City Colleges administrator. ``The mayor told him to put up or shut up.``

Getting the colleges on a new track ``is going to be a very tough job,``

said Ann Seng, president of Urban Affairs Council, a civic organization that has been pressing for changes in the City Colleges system. ``We have had ambivalence and confusion (within City Colleges.) It`s time for that to end.`` Seng said the system has shortchanged a majority of students by not investing enough resources in work force skills programs. She called it

``academic apartheid. We have to get rid of it.``

``For the city to be a viable economic force, we have to have a well-trained work force,`` said Jack Wuest, director of Alternative Schools Network, a non-profit training program. ``That`s why the mayor jumped into the fray with City Colleges.``

Based on Gidwitz`s business record, ``I`m optimistic about the appointment,`` said Ray Lefevour, president of Wright College.

``As a guy who does business in the city, Gidwitz knows we`re in trouble and that City Colleges are the keystone for creating a work force,`` Wuest said.